If there is one thing guaranteed to give you brain freeze faster than a freshly opened ice lolly it’s gulping down a mouthful of Slush Puppie, that wonderful iced drink concoction. It tastes great, but not when you have to clutch your forehead in agony for a few minutes before you can have some more!

The name may not sound that appealing, what with slush being more associated with greying melted ice, but it’s proved to be a good name choice because it is very distinctive. The spelling of Puppie (instead of Puppy) was also specifically chosen to help the product stand out in shops. An interesting tactic, you sort of look at the word and start to question yourself whether the spelling is correct or not, so it stays in your mind for longer.

I distinctly remember the first time I came across Slush Puppie. There was a large newsagent in our local shopping centre which got one of the Slush Puppie machines in behind the counter. You would request your flavour, and a couple of squirts of syrup and a dollop of ice later you’d be presented with your ice cold drink and a straw.

Every time we went past this shop we would pester our Mum for a cup of Slush Puppie, so I’m sure before long she purposely started to avoid that part of the shopping centre on purpose!

As already mentioned, the first hazard of drinking Slush Puppie was the brain freeze, but a more serious mistake was to actually use the straw that you were given. Personally I soon discovered that the straw was a waste of time, as what tended to happen was that the liquid part of the drink, that is the syrup mixed with the melted ice, came up the straw first rather than the ice.

After repeated sucking you soon found your once colourful ice drink started to lose all it’s colour and become little more than a paper cup full of ice crystals devoid of flavour. Since Mum had paid good money for that drink we were therefore made to finish it, which wasn’t much fun with no taste. No, my advice is ditch the straw, and sip the drink instead. That way you get more of the ice and the flavour will last right to the end.

Today it seems that the old squirty bottles of syrup have been phased out and instead we have those machines where you see the ready flavoured ice constantly churning away in a big transparent container on the top – which means you’re normally limited to just two of those flavours. Boo! I’m all for choice!

In the US however, which is where Slush Puppie originated, there are an even wider variety of flavours, including Blue Vanilla (No, don’t get me started – Vanilla should be a creamy colour – it’s Blue Raspberry all over again), Watermelon, Tropical Punch and Polar Purple Shiver. Odd, I thought Purple was a colour, not a flavour…